


Truly Madly Deeply

by mandaestella



Category: Alexbelle
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Valentine's Day, man i love me some fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 22:05:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1320829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandaestella/pseuds/mandaestella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabelle is obsessed with February 14th and the word “chummy” and Alex is the best friend a girl can have, with a little bit of pretend relationship and the two best cities in the country thrown in for fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truly Madly Deeply

**2 0 1 2**

They met on Valentine’s Day.

Alex was in his third year at the University of Southern California, and he had become very accustomed to seeing the tour groups that were led across campus almost daily. They consisted primarily of scared-looking high school students, clutching their red and gold admissions folders close to their chest, trailed by their parents, who looked either incredibly bored or exceedingly optimistic. And Alex could remember when that was him – he was pretty sure he had been just as scared as the high school seniors walking across campus, but a lot had changed since then.

The entire campus was a sea of red that day, even more than usual – a mix of students dressing up for Valentine’s Day and school spirit resounding because of the fact that the Trojans had beaten the University of Washington in basketball last night. Alex wasn’t a fan of Valentine’s Day on principle – it seemed like a contrived holiday, made up so that single people had a day where they could feel extra bad about being alone. And there was too much love on campus for his taste – sorority girls handing out cookies on the concourse and too many couples being extra couple-y.

So Alex was walking around with his head down and the hood of his sweatshirt flipped up over his snapback, his eyes trained on his Twitter feed. And that was why he didn’t see the tiny, brown-haired girl when she appeared in front of him, consulting a map of campus just outside the library.

“Hey!” she squeaked out just before he slammed into her, and he managed to catch himself just in time. “Can you, um… can you help me?”

“Sure.” He pulled on the thin white cord of his headphones, yanking them out of his ears. “What’s up?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to find the campus center? If I don’t get some coffee soon, my head is going to explode.”

Alex smiled. The girl was cute as hell: she was tiny with long brown hair that fell in waves down to the small of her back. She looked like she was still in high school, and judging by the fact that she didn’t seem to know her way around campus, he figured she was on a college visit.

“Yeah, sure.” He pointed up ahead of him. “Just keep going up this way, and then turn left, and then it’s that big building next to that smaller building on the right kind of up there a bit.” He trailed off as he realized how horrible he was at giving directions, and she smirked good-naturedly.

“The big building by the smaller building?” She looked up the road where he had been pointing. “You know that describes like every building on this campus.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of… overwhelming.” Alex could remember the first time he had stepped onto USC’s campus, which was huge and overpowering at first – the University Park Campus was settled right in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, and everything was pretty packed into a five block radius. There were always tons of people everywhere, and today was no exception. “Do you want me to… to show you?”

Alex did not get nervous around girls. He could not remember even one time when he had not been entirely confident with himself – maybe even overly confident, some might say. So why was he so nervous right now? This girl was probably barely eighteen, maybe not even.

“I would love that!” She beamed at him, scurrying to catch up with him as he began walking in the direction of the campus center. “I’m Isabelle, by the way.”

He looked down at her – she barely came up above his elbow. “I’m Alex. Well, Alexander, but you can call me Alex or Xander or whatever.”

Alexander? Why the hell did he say that?

“Alexander,” she said, smiling. “I like that.”

They passed the fountain in Alumni Park, skirting through the grass. “Are you here visiting?”

"Yeah,” she said, shifting her bag from one arm to the other. “I’m from Atlanta, but my sister lives in San Francisco and I’ve always wanted to go here, ever since I was little.”

“So you’re in high school.”

Smooth, Alex.

“I’m a senior,” Isabelle said, looking up at him. “I already got in here, but I hadn’t visited it yet. So… that’s what this is for.” She looked around. “My mom and dad are in that parent orientation program thing right now, so I just decided to – oh my God, can you please slow down? I get that you’re like a giant and all, but I physically cannot walk this fast.”

Alex flushed red, practically coming to a stop. “Oh, sorry.”

Isabelle smiled at him, putting her hand on the back of his arm just above his elbow. “Come on, let’s go.”

Alex sat with her at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in the campus center for three hours, and with every passing minute he felt himself starting to relax a little. Isabelle was adorable – she was shiny and bubbly and bright and every other positive adjective Alex could think of, and she babbled about everything she could think of – school and what she wanted to study and her family. Alex told her that he was a journalism student, that his parents lived in Vancouver and he had a brother her age who was thinking about coming to USC.

Eventually, Isabelle’s parents started texting her, asking her if she was ready to leave. “We’re driving up to San Francisco to see Madeline,” Isabelle told him as she stood up, tossing her empty cup into the trash can.

“Well, have fun.” Alex felt reluctant to let her leave – if she didn’t end up coming to USC (because face it, he told himself, she could go anywhere. She doesn’t care what you want… she just met you!), he would never see her again.

But turned out he didn’t have to worry about that, because Isabelle snatched his phone out of her hand, typing her number in and handing it back to him before he could say anything. “There,” she said happily, pushing out the door. “I’ll see you around.”

 

**2 0 1 3**

“Happy chummiversary!” Alex woke up to someone jumping on top of him and flicking him in the neck. He rolled over, trying to shove her off but she was a lot stronger than she looked. “Alexander, if you don’t wake up this instant, I will have to resort to drastic measures.”

“Just five more minutes, Belle,” he mumbled, pulling his blanket over his head and trying to block her out for as long as possible. Knowing Belle, it was some ungodly hour of the morning and she had already had an entire pot of coffee in her system. “Please?”

The bed creaked as she jumped down onto the floor, and he sighed in relief, snuggling closer to the wall. Five more minutes. But he didn’t get that because a few seconds later a wave of ice cold water splashed over his head, and he sat straight up, spluttering and shaking water out of his eyes.

“Isabelle, what the hell?”

“I warned you!” she said innocently, setting the cup down on his desk. “It’s February fourteenth, Alex, don’t you know what that means?”

“Yeah, I do. It means that I want to stay inside all day because people are annoying little shits.”

"No!” She jumped back up on his bed, crossing her legs and using her shirt sleeve to swipe the water off his jaw. “It means that we have been friends for exactly a year, and that means you have to take me to breakfast.”

“How many cups of coffee have you had this morning?”

“None.”

“None plus…”

“Six. But I was up late last night finishing my psych paper, so I feel like I should get a pass just this once.”

“Oh, do you?” Alex leaned forward, still half under the blanket. “Do you think you deserve a pass?” He grabbed Isabelle, dragging her towards him and digging his fingers into the spot just below her ribs where he knew she was the most ticklish.

“Alex, stop!” she shrieked. “You have to be nice to me, it’s chummiversary!”

“You dumped water on me!”

“Yes, but we wouldn’t be chummies if it I wasn’t for me. You would have walked right by me!”

And she was right, as usual. But Alex had texted Isabelle the day after they met, telling her that it was nice to meet her and that if she ended up coming to LA she should let him know. But instead of just saying okay and leaving it at that, Isabelle kept texting him, and eventually it felt normal to wake up and immediately check his phone to see if he had a message from her. And at the end of April, just a week before she was set to graduate, she called him, telling him it was official.

He was there, waiting for her, when she arrived on campus for Freshman Move-In Day, and he helped her move all six million of her boxes into her dorm. He was there when she showed up on his doorstep the night before classes, freaking out that she would get lost and be late and the professor would yell at her. He was there to take her out to dinner the next night, when she was ecstatic about how well the first day had actually gone. He was there every single day, and without either of them noticing, they had become the kind of best friends who couldn’t be apart – when he wasn’t in class or playing football with his buddies, he was with her, and if for some strange reason they were apart, he would get asked, “Where’s Isabelle?” She was like his little sister, he always said, ruffling her hair as he did so, just so she would get that offended look on her face and immediately stomp to the nearest mirror to make sure he hadn’t done any permanent damage (“If you knew how long it took me to get it to look this good, you would not be doing that, Alexander!”). He knew everything about her – that she liked honey in her tea but only if it was the nasty raw kind that he couldn’t stand; that she hated her roommate because she talked into her sleep and turned off Isabelle’s alarm every single morning; that she called him Alexander when she was annoyed with him, which was a lot. But she loved him, and he loved her, and they were inseparable.

“I take you to breakfast every damn day, Belle. How is this going to be special?”

“Good point.” Isabelle frowned, weaving her hair into a fishtail braid as Alex got up, yanking his shirt over his head to change as fast as he could before Isabelle threatened to do it for him. “Maybe you should just mow me down on the concourse instead.”

“For the last time,” Alex glared at her in the mirror as he rummaged through his closet for something relatively clean, “I said I was sorry! It was a week ago… aren’t you are ever going to let it go?”

“I had the most massive bruise on my hip, Alexander.” She glared back like only a Fuhrman could. “My roommate thought you were beating me!”

“Want me to kiss it better, Belle?” He yanked her off the bed, spinning her around a couple of times before he put her down, just because he knew how much it annoyed her. “I offered like a billion times, you know.”

“That’s disgusting.” She wrinkled her nose at him, barely giving him enough time to grab his backpack and his phone before she ushered him out the door, slamming it shut behind her.

Alex lived right off campus, just off the edge of the east side in a block of apartments that looked exactly like the Garden District in New Orleans, with lots of climbing plants and brightly painted doors (Alex’s was bright blue) and balconies and huge windows. It reminded Isabelle of home, and that was one of the reasons she liked spending so much time there, she had told Alex the first week of fall semester.

They went to breakfast as usual, and Alex walked Isabelle to Psych as usual, and he headed off to Features as usual, texting Isabelle that he would meet her at the Coffee Bean for lunch (as usual). All in all, it was a pretty usual day, at least until they were walking back from the gym after dinner.

“Oh God,” Alex hissed, trying to hide himself behind Isabelle, which wasn’t really working for him. “Belle, hide me.”

“Alex, what the hell?” She twisted around, trying to see what he was doing, but he kept darting around behind her, trying to stay hidden. He shushed her insistently, so she just raised her voice. “Alexander!”

“Don’t say my name, you freak! Don’t you see I’m trying to hide here?”

“Alexander Ludwig!” Isabelle bellowed in a voice that did not match her size. “Can you stop being such a one-off for two seconds please?”

“Alex?” A voice came from their left, and Isabelle darted off around the corner, leaving him there to fend for himself. What a great best friend, he thought darkly.

“Hey, Leigh,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous. He was lucky it was dark out because there was a red flush creeping its way up his neck. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing.” Leighton flipped her long dark hair behind her, tying it up with a flick of her wrist. “Did you do anything fun for Valentine’s Day?”

“No, not really—”

“I really miss you, you know.”

Alex heard Isabelle cough from where she was standing around the corner, hidden by a bush – probably trying to stifle a laugh. She had never met Leighton before, but she knew exactly who Leighton was – she had heard Alex whine about her a million times: his high school girlfriend, who had followed him to college even though they had broken up before senior year was even over, and who he hadn’t really been able to shake after four years in Los Angeles.

“I… uh… I—”

“Babe!”

Alex was shocked, to say the least, when he saw Isabelle skip towards him. She walked right up to him, slipping her hand into his and standing up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“What?” he mumbled.

“Just shut the hell up,” she hissed at him, pulling back and beaming at Leighton. “Hi! I’m Isabelle.”

“I’m… Leighton,” Alex’s ex said cautiously. “Are you… are you two…”

“This is my girlfriend,” Alex said, officially taking back the murderous thoughts that had ran through his head thirty seconds ago when Isabelle had abandoned him.

“Oh. Really?” Leighton looked back and forth between the two of them. “I didn’t see anything on Facebook or anything.”

“She’s ashamed of me,” Alex said, easily slipping his arm around Isabelle’s waist and pulling her tight to his side. “We’ve got to get going, babe, or we’re going to miss our dinner reservations.”

“Are you sure?” Isabelle wrinkled her eyebrows at him innocently. “I thought that wasn’t for another hour, so we can probably stay and talk—”

“Nope, you’re wrong.” He pinched her side, trying to make the gesture as surreptitious as possible, and she elbowed him back, not quite as surreptitiously. Leighton eyed them, unconvinced.

“Um… how long have you been together?”

“How long has it been?” Isabelle asked sweetly, looking up at Alex.

“Feels like forever,” he muttered, until she elbowed him again. “Only since break,” he said, smiling at Leighton and only feeling a little bad. “Time to go, Belle.”

He tugged her hand, backing away from Leighton and dragging Isabelle with him. “Nice to meet you!” Isabelle called cheerfully as Alex practically carried her away.

She waited until they were far enough away to dissolve into laughs and snatch her hand out of his like he had burned her. “God, you are so stupid,” she managed to get out in between bursts of laughter. “I’ve never seen you that scared ever!”

“Shut up, Isabelle,” Alex grumbled, gently shoving her away from him but pulling her back in the next second to sling his arm around her shoulders.

“Can you imagine though?” She was still giggling. “We would be disgusting together.”

Alex smirked. “You can say that again. Although you seemed to enjoy that, so are you sure there’s not something you want to tell me?”

“Oh, shut up. Do I look like the type who wants to wife your ass up?” Alex laughed, loud and happily, pulling her close to his side and trying to trip her, like he always did. Isabelle pouted up at him, sticking out her tongue. “This right here, this relationship, it’s over!”

 

**2 0 1 4**

Alex loved Los Angeles – he would always love Los Angeles – but New York City was his dream come true. He’d wanted to work for the New York Times ever since he could remember, and now he was actually doing it – sure, at this point he was basically just an assistant, but he was here; he was living his dream; and it was everything he had ever wanted.

Except for the fact that he’d had to leave his best friend behind.

They’d both known it was coming, of course. As spring semester dragged on, both Isabelle and Alex were getting increasingly more tetchy, at each other’s throats for no reason at all, and they both knew why, although neither of them wanted to bring it up.

She had cried at his graduation, like he knew she would, and she had cried the day they had packed up his car and sent him across the country. And it killed him to know that she was still at USC without him, that it would be two and a half more years before she could even think about coming to join him.

Truth was, he was lost without her. She was his family.

Alex had considered asking Isabelle to come to New York on Valentine’s Day, so they could continue their chummiversary tradition. But she had a boyfriend and was busy with midterms, and he had a big boy job, and so he didn’t even bring it up.

On the morning of the fourteenth, Alex woke up to texts from his mom and his sisters, but nothing from Isabelle, although it was only five in the morning in Los Angeles, so he didn’t know why he expected anything else.

But when he was walking down the street towards the Time offices at eight-thirty, he heard Isabelle’s ringtone coming from his pocket (Witch Doctor – Isabelle thought Alvin and the Chipmunks were the funniest things in the world, and whenever Alex heard it, he remembered how many hours she spent laughing at it). “Hello?”

“Happy chummiversary!” she squealed on the other end, overly chipper and most likely highly caffeinated, considering it was six-thirty in the morning where she was.

“Belle, what the hell are you doing awake?” He looked both ways, darting across the street and avoiding the cabs as best he could, ignoring the honks and swears of the drivers.

“Um, it’s chummiversary. And I couldn’t be there to obnoxiously wake you up again, so I had to settle for an obnoxious call instead.”

“Got any big plans today?”

“You mean, other than spending all day studying? Not a one.”

“It’s Friday, Belle, you need to go out and have some fun. And besides, doesn’t Nate have something planned?”

“Oh, we broke up,” she said airily, like it was no big deal that she was hiding important information from him.

“What?”

“It’s no big deal, Alexander,” she said, in her exasperated tone of voice that she only used when she felt like he was getting too protective. “I just got bored with it.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am great, so stop being such a worrier. God, I thought that was my job.”

Alex could hear the smile in his voice as he approached the doors of the huge skyscraper that housed the NYT offices. “I’m at work, Belle, so I’ve gotta run, but I’ll call you when I get done tonight, okay?”

“Okay, love you, bye!” She was gone before he could respond, as usual. Belle was always in a hurry – she lived life at a sprint.

Alex missed Isabelle more than words could describe, and he would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered trying to date her. But even if they had gotten together last year, there always would have been an expiration date on it, because he had always planned on leaving California as soon as he graduated. And Isabelle wasn’t the type of girl who liked to be tied down – she went through guys at the speed of light, not because she was mean spirited or hard to get along with, but because she loved her freedom more than she could ever love a guy. So she flitted around campus, leaving a trail of broken hearts in her wake and saying that it didn’t matter in the end because she had Alex and who else did she need?

It was a long day for Alex as he fielded phone calls and answered emails. By the time five o’clock rolled around, he was ready to get home, get changed, and go out for a beer with his friends.

He was on the phone with Mark as he unlocked the door to his apartment, a nice big one on the Upper East Side, courtesy of his parents who were just so proud that their oldest son had actually gotten through college. “I’m not going anywhere near Times Square tonight,” Mark was saying as Alex clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder, dropping his keys in the dish beside the door. “There’s too many annoying couples who serve as a nice reminder for why I’m going to be alone forever.”

“You’re not going to be alone forever.” Alex rolled his eyes, looking in the mirror and fixing his hair before he shrugged off his coat. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I am, and you know why? Because—” But Alex never heard why because at that moment, he turned around to head for the shower and dropped his phone, letting it shatter on the hardwood floor of his entry way. “Oh my God, what are you doing here?”

Isabelle, his Belle, was sitting on his sofa, grinning hugely. She jumped up as soon as he spotted her, running towards him and taking a flying leap. He barely managed to catch her, he was so shocked to see her, and he staggered backwards a step as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, burying her face in his neck and squealing wordlessly.

“I just missed you!” she said as she pulled back after a few long golden moments. “And it’s our chummiversary, and I thought well, maybe he didn’t ask me to come visit, but who care what he thinks, I’ll just do it anyways, and I haven’t seen you since, like, Thanksgiving, so I called my dad and asked him if he could pretty please let me use some of his frequent flyer miles, because I am his favorite daughter, you know, and—”

“Belle,” Alex cut her off, laughing as he gently set her down. “Take a breath, jeez.”

“Are you happy?” She beamed up at him.

“I’m so happy.”

He showered and changed as quickly as possible and she dragged him out the door, leaving his phone useless and broken on the kitchen counter after she promised she would buy him a new one. “So what are we doing for chummiversary?”

“Well, Mark and I were going to go out for a beer but—”

“That sounds perfect.” She slipped her hand into his and twirled around on the sidewalk. “New York is so gorgeous, isn’t it? I can’t believe you live here!”

They were in the taxi when Isabelle dialed Mark’s number. “We’re going to Times Square whether you like it or not, Marcus,” she said bossily, knowing full well that Mark was going to hate Alex for it. “Why? Because I’m from LA, and that means I’m a tourist, and that means we have to. It’s like a rite of passage.” A short pause. “No, I will not pretend to be your girlfriend.” Another pause. “Cheer up, babe. I promise it won’t be as bad as you think. And if I’m wrong, I’ll buy you a beer, okay?”

Valentine’s Day (Valentine’s Night?) in Times Square was beautiful, to say the least, and Alex could feel Isabelle practically shaking with excitement next to him as he paid the cabbie and they headed towards the huge open space. There was a massive sculpture made of LED tubes in the center of the square, a red heart glowing in its center. The sculpture reflected all the lights of Times Square, and everything was bright pink and red and silver.

Mark met them by the sculpture, taking their picture and immediately Instagramming it. He gave Isabelle a big hug and a kiss on the head, and she brushed him off impatiently like she always did.

“I really missed you, Alex,” she whispered to him after Mark went to get them beers.

And he looked down at her, so tiny next to him, all wrapped in her white coat and red scarf and pink cheeks and little gray beanie, and he realized that he missed her too – so much, he had been missing her for such a long time – and so he took a step towards her, bringing his hands up to land on either side of her neck, and he kissed her – all that energy finally coming to a head after two years. She smelled so good and she tasted like strawberries and mint and he could see the lights of Times Square twinkling behind his closed eyelids and everything was IsabelleIsabelleIsabelle and when he finally pulled back – after several long moments that seemed like years – she smiled at him, that big gorgeous Isabelle smile that he loved so much and would do anything to see.

“Well,” she said softly, reaching up to hook her arms around his neck. “It took you long enough.”

And it was true – it had taken them two years to realize how they actually felt about each other, but it had really worked out perfectly in the end, because now Valentine’s Day would definitely always be their day.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my three best chummies. Chrissa, Em, Hannah: I am so lucky to have the three most wonderful, gorgeous, kind best friends anyone could ever ask for. I love you, ladies, and someday we will have our own chummiversary party.


End file.
